Response to School Violence Is Inadequate
“Quiet and order” are the “foundation of learning” at UNO charter schools in Chicago, reports Education Week. Educated in a safe, disciplined, school community, UNO’s students – mostly low-income and Latino — outperform the average for Chicago public school students.
For many students in the city that used to “know how,” school is a chaotic and dangerous place — and getting home is even worse. Last year, 34 Chicago students died violently, usually off campus, and 290 were wounded in shootings.
The latest victim, 16-year-old Derrion Albert, is different for two reasons: He was an honor student who stumbled into a brawl between two warring factions at Fenger “Academy” High School. More important, the brutal assault was videotaped by a classmate’s cellphone and shown on the Internet.
In response to the furor, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who was CEO of Chicago Public Schools, pledged federal support to fight youth violence. So far, that amounts to $25 million for crime prevention nationwide.
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley pledged more police protection for students on the perilous way home and GED programs for dropouts.
Fenger will get $500,000. As they talked in a downtown hotel, another fight broke out outside Fenger, despite a police presence.
Even before Albert’s murder, Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman announced a $30 million a year violence prevention plan that targets students who fit a profile that predicts who is most likely to be a victim of violence. (They’re also likely to be perpetrators, but that’s not the PC spin.) Black males from troubled families who are in special education or alternative schools are likely to be involved in violence, the data show. These students are behind in credits, skip school more than 40 percent of the time, and commit one serious school violation per year.
The 1,200 who best fit the profile will be offered paid jobs to keep them busy and matched with “advocates” and social workers.
There will no jobs for students like Derrion Albert, who show up, do the work, and follow the rules. They don’t fit the profile.
“A small number of children would need to go elsewhere to learn self-control. If some never learned, at least they wouldn’t destroy the learning opportunities of others or drive teachers out of the profession.”
Pass the popcorn. Progressive fratricide is always fun to watch. “Mainstreamers” vs. teacher’s union hacks, and the union have all the aces.
“A small number of children would need to go elsewhere to learn self-control. If some never learned, at least they wouldn’t destroy the learning opportunities of others or drive teachers out of the profession.”
Pass the popcorn. Progressive fratricide is always fun to watch. “Mainstreamers” vs. teacher’s union hacks, and the union have all the aces.
try 2 to avoid bogus duplicate post detector
These violent neighborhoods were not always this way.
There was also a time when the schools in these neighborhood were ok.
Thank you, Great Society!
“If teachers had the authority to enforce classroom rules, exiling the most defiant students, the vast majority of go-with-the-flow kids would follow the rules. It would be the new normal.”
“A small number of children would need to go elsewhere to learn self-control. If some never learned, at least they wouldn’t destroy the learning opportunities of others or drive teachers out of the profession.”
Never going to happen. First, the removal of defiant and disruptive students will not happen becuase of the threat of law suits. For the past thirty years, good students have been thrown under the bus so the defiant and disruptive students can have their equal opportunity of outcomes rights upheld.
Second, most of the defiant and disruptive students may be IEP students who are protected against disciplinary recourse due to their IEP.
Third, most of the defiant and disruptive students in both the urban and suburban schools are black-NOT ALL-but the majority (and in the case of suburban schools it is white kids trying to act urban/ghetto/gang bangers) are and so were talking about the threat of racism being thrown about for which loyal progressive teachers, unions and administrators could not possibly bear.
This is called “Reward the Losers”. The socialists will always find a way to do this. It’s their last big hope.
Why havn’t the black leaders Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton taken care of this? I’m sure they are working very, very hard on this. Soon all will be well.
I can think of twenty activist legal groups that will be all over these thugs like white on guilt, portraying them as essentially good boys who are being turned into bad boys as result of their being ostracized from the system. Then play the race card where possible, make a tearful documentary (at taxpayer expense), do a dishonest and sympathetic TV interview and pass it off to the newtworks as “news”, and muck up the legal system for decades. Further, these defenders of social pathology will then try to burden the system with so may additional fees and requirements and certification and legal red-tape that the costs will soar out of control, and then they will forward the argument that the program isn’t cost effective (thanks you, leftist budget hawks). I think, at least in Chicago, President Obama knows the leaders in 19 of these groups on a first name basis.
Address the student(s) with teachers, social workers, counselors, etc.,
Where the *ell are the parents in this? Oh, wait. That would placate blame away from ‘the system’.
It’s situations like this where the parental unit(s) are so unable to care for themselves, let alone their kids I believe free vasectomies would be beneficial.
I worked for a while as a substitute teacher. I was sent to one school where the introductory sheet that the office handed out to substitute teachers talked about “diversity” and “multiculturalism.” I had problems with the class. I got sent to the school the following year: the introductory sheet that the office handed out to substitute teachers mentioned neither “diversity” nor “multiculturalism.” I had no problems with the class this time.
Any lessons to be derived from this?
When schools become institutionalized baby-sitters and parents stop taking responsibility for their own offspring…well…
The rest of the country either has given up on these parts of our cities or do not care . More public funding for abortion might help . Maybe pay pregnant women to terminate and be sterilized ..
No amount of government spending is ever going to change these pathetic statistics. The most plausible solution is to seriously crack down on criminals and gang members and allowing the decent people living amongst them to defend themselves with whatever they can. The kids who attacked that honor student should have been locked up years ago.
This was such a tragedy.
But, in all this sorrow…where is Jackson, Sharpton? Where is their bandwagon? Where is their outrage? is there no money to be made so we are not having riots over this young man’s death?
This is all an obvious conspiracy perpetrated by The Man. Kill whitey and all this will end and there will be peace on earth.
11. That’s called genocide, idiot. Apparently we never learned what badthink eugenics really is.
Support kids who do well? That’s “elitist” and against “social justice”! Dirtabg trouble makers need all the advantages and support in life they can get! (Then we’ll have more Democrats, employees of ACORN and members of SEIU. People who work hard and achieve don’t do that.)
This article is just flat out dumb. Violent behavior and disparagement of education and learning are hallmarks of a single motherhood society. Familiar to any readers of the White British Underclass (Chav society) chronicler Theodore Dalrymple.
You can throw money, counselors, and what have you at the Black Underclass or White British Underclass (and Labor HAS in Britain, the OECD reports that Britain is highest in social spending on youth and the highest teen female drinkers). It won’t do a thing.
Young men know being violent (and particularly, killing someone) is the key for sexual attraction and desire by young women. They know well that working hard in school and studying is a ticket to World of WarCraft basement dwelling and virginity. This is the inevitable result of single mother dominated societies that always devolve into female choice of violent stimulus-excitement men rather than steady providers.
Wow, a life of sex and female attention, or being a sexless drone but finding the approval of counselors and social workers who go home to safe neighborhoods every day. I know which *I* would choose if I were a young Black Man in Chicago or young White British Chav.
Bottom line: schools can do a reasonably good job of teaching middle/working class kids in a nuclear family environment the basics, but that is all that schools can do. They cannot no matter how much money you spend fix a society that has chosen single motherhood, violent men as the choice of young women, and anti-education values. Note: the British mirror image of young Blacks punishing those for “acting White” is the British Chav version of same. It is based on sexual selection by young women for violent thugs.
The main problem is that the social culture rewards aggressive behavior especially by high school. Young males that are violent do get the females and money by bullying the betas. Extortion and theft are successful. Young people at that age never think of the long term future. All they think is the now.
Schools have exacerbated the problem with moral equivalence that the bad kids and their victims are all the same. If a bad kid bullies an decent kid who refuses to stand down then both are punished rather than the aggressor. Plus teachers know the aggressor kid can hurt them so they are intimidated and allow the bully to skate.
Sometimes a passive aggressive male will strike back with overwhelming force like the Columbine killers. By that point all they are focused in on killing and power and don’t care who they hurt because they have been condition that the aggressive person wins.
The single mother pathology leads to a failure to have fathers keep the young males in line. Young males need older males to teach the limits and that there are limiits and will be physical punished if they transgress.
But the state took that tool away and parents who try to make kids obey can be arrested for child abuse.
Many young males need a heavy hand to keep them in line and to learn to submit to authority.
The military first breaks a soldier to change the attitude and they use physical punishment. Run, pushups etc.
So social liberals said that marriage was not needed and fathers were unneeded. and that children will grow up civilized without any training. They have reaped what they sowed and now we have a crop of savages.
Whiskey,
I can’t possibly be the the only hot chick who thinks ‘geeks’ are sexy???????
I reject the notion this is everbody’s fault and a national problem . Local government and the propagation of the welfare state are at the heart of children killing children . A sub-culture that celebrates thuggish behavior but can not be criticized without being called racist is the fault of those racists saying it can not be criticized . Who benefits ? Local government and race hustlers .